I agree Crow that's why he changed it but i think he had side effects that maybe where not thought about.
Individual gladiator skill/strategy is now pointless in my opinion, its all about numbers now, how many glads you can use to challenge someone. It used to be if you could bring a glad to Primus and keep a 65% win ratio and you would climb up the ranks, i did with Belgarad he was my only glad in Primus and before this points change he caught up and took the top spot under the old system, so it was possible.
Now with the points change i think you can forget about ever seeing a single gladiator do that again. It is now going to take a solid 10-15 gladiators to make a push to the top spot and here is my reasoning why. If you spend your daily tokens wisely and have your challenges go threw and win all your fights you might climb 30 ranks in one day, even make it into the teens, but all that growth can be knocked out by 3-4 losses. And whats the easiest way to give someone those losses, attack them in mass.
Right now in the Primus Top 10 Crow/Oedi have 7 of the glads, in the top 20 they have 13 of the glads, in the top 30 around 19 glads, so below 30 you two have another 7 glads or so. So if your in the top 10 you have at least 3 of their glads challenging each day just cause your the only target, if your in the top 10-20 you could be challenged more (I'd guess though that their goal right now is clearing out the top 10, that's what I'd be doing ). Even if you win 70% of those fights you will loose points with how the new system is.
For an example i will use Zmash, he is in the top 10 right now, i don't expect him to be there much longer, if he lasts 2 more weeks i'd consider him a bad ass . Early this morning he was in 2nd place and about 3k away from 1st place after his fights and then during the day today he was challenged 12 times by Crow/Oedi gladiators (4 different glads) and won about 50% of the fights, he is now 13k points away from 1st and dropped from 2nd to 4th place. Every time he drops a rank it just opens him up to more challenges from different glads. By cherry picking the match ups they can easily push all the other glads out of the top of Primus. Each time one person is pushed out that free's up more glads for them to challenge the remaining glads with, even if your winning 60% of your fights against the challenges with the amount of points you now loose on a lose you will drop in rank.
I have no real complaints about what Crow/Oedi are doing its just how the game works right now, but I do believe they will be able to get to the point where they are the top 15 if not the top 20 glads in the game due to them having all types the different types of glads at their disposal, every glad has a weakness no one glad can take on everyone, they can cherry pick the challenges and use favorable match ups to achieve this. I fully expect them to take over the top 15-20 or more, hell I'd be disappointed if they don't!
Now I am kinda focused on Crow/Oedi here but it will be the same when another group rises with more numbers then they have and they will be pushed out unless their glads can win 75% of there battles (which should be unrealistic when matched up against the "counter" style to your glad) or what ever it takes to stay points neutral on wins/losses. I am sure we will see this in the months to come. They just happen to be the top "Alliance" right now.
I decided today to stop trying to being "competitive" in Primus, I just really don't see the point right now, before it was about trying to take a gladiator to the top, now its about politics and playing the numbers game, some people probably really enjoy that type of game but its not my thing. I have no interest in trying to start a "cold war" of gladiator stables and try and match the number of glads Crow/Oedi have in Primus. So i plan on focusing on the blood games and re-doing some of my glads to make them more competitive there, daily fights will just be to get training points.
Now if you've made it this far do i think there is a fix, yes its an easy fix, just lower the % chance of a challenge going threw, and put a hard cap on the number of times a glad can be successfully challenged, say 4 a day. That would insure that high end "Alliances" would still end up fighting each other a lot, and give "Independent" managers with 1-3 glads a hell of a better shot of seeing the top of Primus then how it is now.